The present invention relates to a deformable mounting bracket.
In designing systems many factors must be considered. One factor which must be considered in many systems is the dissipation of heat from heat-sensitive components. Although certain components may generate their own heat, great consideration is given in designing a system configured to keep as much heat as possible away from heat-sensitive components. Examples of heat-sensitive components may be found in automobile engines, aircraft engines, computer systems, (including, e.g., mainframe systems, and personal computers), telecom applications, hand-held phones, global-positioning systems and similar devices and systems. An exemplary system that would benefit from use of the present invention is a computer system. While the following paragraphs discuss computer systems, the present invention can be advantageously applied to a variety of situations in a variety of applications.
Traditionally, there are various methods for attaching devices to other devices or to other sub-assemblies of a system. One method involves the use of ordinary screws or other material fasteners. With mechanical screws, for example, the device may be provided with a threaded hole for receiving a screw. A sub-assembly, to which the device is to be coupled, may be provided with a corresponding hole that a screw fits through. Accordingly when the device and sub-assembly are properly aligned, a screw may be passed through the hole in a subassembly and threaded into the device, thereby mounting the device to that sub-assembly. Of course, similar coupling techniques may be used with other mechanical fasteners, such as brads, rivets, pins, clips, snaps, and the like.
Other artisans make use of an intermediate part between the device and subassembly to facilitate mounting. A bracket is an example of such an intermediate part. Sometimes brackets are simply sheet metal that are folded into a tray shape or other suitable configuration and mechanically attached to the device via mechanical fasteners.
For example, consider the disk-mounting brackets in common use in certain computer workstation products today. Basically, these products use the aforementioned folded metal brackets, in various configurations to correspond to the system chassis or disk drive bay configuration, for disk mounting. Some such brackets are made of a somewhat insubstantial, 1 mm thick, steel sheet that is folded into various predetermined shapes such that various devices, in particular, disk drives, may be fastened into the brackets using standard screws. Similarly, such disk-mounting brackets have been formed of plastics. Once the device, in this case a disk drive, is mounted to the bracket, the bracket itself may be mounted to the chassis using, for example, a spring snap-type of assembly or, alternatively, using screws. A disadvantage of these types of brackets is that they fail to provide appreciable thermal conduction of heat away from the device. Steel is typically a poor thermal conductor and brackets comprised of cobalt steel may suffer from an inability to adequately dissipate heat from the device; the plastics of other embodiments of such disk-mounting brackets provide even poorer thermal conductivity.
There have been brackets designed to facilitate mounting of a device into a sub-assembly and to conduct heat away from that device. These brackets take on a different shape and a different form from traditional sheet metal or plastic mounting brackets. This is due, in part, to the fact that these brackets must be constructed out of a highly thermally-conductive material such as aluminum, aluminum alloy, copper or gold. The material of construction and cost of such material may affect the construction of a bracket. Accordingly, such mounting brackets have not generally been available for widespread use, such as in the typical desktop computer system.
Although heat dissipating methods exist for use in high-end applications, these methods have not been broadly accepted because of their complexity and cost. For example, such methods typically make use of two rails that transverse opposite sides of the hard drive which rails are difficult to install. The rail system typically includes a pair of rails made out of die-cast aluminum and a piece of injection-molded plastic that attaches the two rails and helps keep all of the parts together as a sub-assembly. In practice, the rails are actually rotated out of the way of the device (so that the device can be partially lowered in) and then brought back into intimate contact with the device so the device can be mounted. Accordingly, the rail method suffers from the drawback that installation is often extremely difficult. Another disadvantage is that this method requires multiple separate parts, and each of these parts require separate toolings to fabricate them, thereby greatly increasing manufacturing costs.
The problem of difficult installation in many prior art systems is due, in part, to the fact that they used a die-cast aluminum material (which is a much poorer thermal conductor than a regular aluminum alloy). Die-cast aluminum brackets also require the use of an additional intermediate piece between the bracket and the device. The intermediate piece, called a thermal interface material, is typically a very thin, i.e. 0.020 inch thick, spongy material. The purpose of this intermediate piece of spongy material is to conduct heat from the device to the device bracket if necessary. One drawback of using a thermal interface material is that the thermal interface material makes installation extremely difficult because it tends to peel away from and off of the underlying disk bracket and to gather or bunch below the disk drive as it is installed. Accordingly, the actual installation of the disk is extremely difficult.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention a mounting bracket for a device comprises a resiliently-deformable surface having a deforming element disposed therein, and a pair of attachment members disposed on opposite sides of and attached to the surface. The attachment members are adapted to interface with the device upon deformation of the deforming element.
According to another embodiment of the invention a mounting bracket for a device comprises a resiliently-deformable body including a portion comprising a flat spring, and a pair of members disposed on opposite sides of and attached to the body. The bracket receives and retains the device and the members movable under a deforming force applied to the flat spring to interface the members with the device.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method of mounting a device in a housing, comprising forming a base portion of a bracket to include a resiliently-deformable section, inserting the device into the bracket, and applying a force to members of the bracket to cause the members to move inwardly while simultaneously deforming the base portion so as to bring said members into contact with the device.
Another embodiment of the invention provides a mounting bracket for a device comprising means for disposing members of the bracket at opposite sides of said device, means for applying a force to the members of the bracket to cause the members to move inwardly while deforming a deformable portion of a base of the bracket so as to bring the members into contact with the device without deforming other portions of the base of said bracket.